Penrith
Hi pinsiders,
Has anyone been able to crack the APPLE OS and code that Williams and Bally used on their WPC 89 and WPC 95 boards?
I'd be great to fix some of the nagging WPC bugs of the 90's.
(Topic ID: 216761)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rom-re-programming
There is a large thread where PPS was collecting bugfix requests with the intention of releasing updates, but I don't think that ended up resulting in anything so far.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wish-list-of-bugs-in-wmsbly-wpcwpc95-code-to-fix
Rochester, NY
This unfortunately is the correct answer. Anyone publicly messing with the WPC code tends to get a nastygram from PPS. But if a person *were* to start poking around, one of the Getaway ROMs in particular would be a good starting point.
Quoted from Sonny_Jim:This unfortunately is the correct answer. Anyone publicly messing with the WPC code tends to get a nastygram from PPS. But if a person *were* to start poking around, one of the Getaway ROMs in particular would be a good starting point.
Are you familiar with PinBits and their L1AT ROM that they created to make the Deadworld Mod ring work for Judge Dredd? This was a revision of the L1 or L3 ROM. Do you know how they were able to produce and market this? Did they have permission from PPS or the company that owns W/B assets?
It has been cracked, long time now, but it’s not easy to work in as the original programming environment is not available to the public. I was told that it all still exists somewhere on 8” floppies for the earlier generations as well as the later WPC programming but I don’t know on what format.
From long-ago conversations with Rick, he is very hamstrung by Scientific Games when it comes to software. He needs to go to them to approve any code changes and they flat out don’t want to allow any.
So we’re stuck dealing with assembly language and reverse engineering an odd language that intermixed with the assembly code. Very time consuming, and it gets more complex as the games evolved. Not for the weak of heart.
There had been attempts to distribute free play roms, and no-ghosting fixes. But again, Scientific won’t allow open distribution of altered code. Lots of legal complications to wade through.
1 week later
Quoted from JediPimp:Did they have permission from PPS or the company that owns W/B assets?
Sorry for the late reply, last time I saw one of those Deadworld Mod ROMs it had a hologram sticker on it, implying that they had come to some sort of arrangement to get them manufactured 'legitimately'.
Quoted from mbaumle:I was under the impression that "FreeWPC" allowed users to change the code in the ROMs?
As metallik points out, FreeWPC doesn't allow you to change code in ROMs, it allows you to write your own from scratch.
Quoted from HHaase:It has been cracked, long time now
Just to clarify, the code to unlock the ASIC that controls the switch matrix has been reverse engineered so projects like MAME and FreeWPC can work. It also means you can use software to modify a ROM so you can use any security chip on WPC-S games. Search this page for 'ANYPIC.EXE':
http://www.edcheung.com/album/album07/Pinball/wpc_sound2.htm
Quoted from HHaase:So we’re stuck dealing with assembly language and reverse engineering an odd language that intermixed with the assembly code. Very time consuming
It's a lot easier when you realise that a particular version of the Getaway ROM was released with debugging strings included. Pretty sure IDA supports the 6809 as well.
Quoted from Sonny_Jim:But if a person *were* to start poking around, one of the Getaway ROMs in particular would be a good starting point.
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